


The Redhead Who Feeds The Goats

by FrancescaFiona



Series: What The Series Never Showed You [3]
Category: True Blood (TV)
Genre: Eric's human life, Eric's quest, F/M, First Love, Flashback, Marriage Proposal, Russell Edgington's Wolves, Sookie's Viking Equivalent, Vampires, Vikings, Wolf Attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 11:58:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16325792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrancescaFiona/pseuds/FrancescaFiona
Summary: *Based upon a flashback from the series*During a trip to Eric’s ‘windy shit-hole’ farm back in Sweden with Pam, Eric feels a little emotional remembering his first love.





	The Redhead Who Feeds The Goats

It was a beautiful spring night and the stars were shining. The countryside was illuminated by the moon and not a soul could deny the beauty of this slither of Swedish countryside.

 

Bar one.

 

Pam was wearing the wrong shoes.

 

“Eric,” she began sweetly, casting her eyes critically over the dirt-track beneath her feet. “I…think we’ve seen enough.”

 

Her eyes said the rest. Get me back on that fucking airplane.

 

Eric was not listening. He took in a magnificent breath of the cold night air.

 

“Aaaahhhh,” he sighed contently. “Smell that, Pam?”

 

His progeny’s nose was wrinkled in disgust.

 

“Sadly, yes,” she drawled, hand on hip. “Now lets. _Go.”_

 

She turned to stalk away, wincing as her new pair of heels sank into something particularly slimy.

 

But Eric was not, as she had hoped, following her.

 

“Eric!” she called impatiently.

 

However, her annoyance turned instantly to concern as she felt her maker’s distress.

 

“Eric! What’s wrong?” she called, worried by what she had just felt through their bond.

 

“Nothing is wrong here,” he said quietly in his native tongue. “Everything is completely as it should be.”

 

Pam raised an eyebrow.

 

“It takes me back to my human life…”

 

Eric trailed off to sniff the air as a particularly strong gust of wind fed more of the delicious smell to him.

 

“Eric,” said Pam angrily. “It smells of goat…”

 

 

 

_“…And so I’d say it’s not hard to deduce where you have been all evening!”_

 

_Eric’s father slammed his fist on the table._

 

_“Stalking the damn redhead who feeds the goats!”_

 

_Eric grinned boyishly._

_“I was just asking Freja if she wanted to celebrate the Midsummer with me,” he said with a flourish._

_His mother raised an eyebrow._

_“Aaaand you’ll be happy to know she accepted,” he finished._

_His father gave an angry huff while his mother smiled down at her lap._

 

_“See?” cried Eric triumphantly, catching sight of this. “Mother is in favour!”_

_“Darling, I think it’s wonderful that the ladies are interested,” she allowed softly, with a laugh in her voice._

_“Damn right they are!” cried Eric’s father. “Because you will one day be the King! The_ gods _Eric, when will you begin to take responsibility!”_

 

_Not today._

 

_Eric rolled his eyes._

 

_“You can go and tell the goat girl that if she wants to come to the Midsummer festival with you, she has to marry you as well!” snapped Eric’s father._

 

_Eric was taken aback. For the first time, his father looked and sounded serious about the idea of betrothal. Eric would have to start making plans._

 

_The next day Eric rose uncharacteristically early with a knot of sickness in his stomach. Up until this day, he had never been unsure of himself._

 

_What if she refused him?_

 

_What if she preferred the blacksmith?_

 

_It was one thing to, slightly drunkenly, invite Freja over for Midsummer, and quite another to propose marriage._

 

_He needed advice._

 

_“Mother…I was wondering…” Eric began sheepishly as he sought her out in the yard of the house._

_“Yes, love?”_

_“How would you…if…”_

_Eric didn’t quite know haw to phrase his question._

_“Go on?”_

_“If somebody asked you to marry them…er…I mean…what would be the most impressive way for someone to ask you to marry them, in your opinion.”_

 

_His mother considered, folding the linen in her hands absently._

 

_“Well, I was one of the washerwomen, so your father left this wedding tiara…”_

_She pointed to the thin crown, perched on her head as Eric had always remembered it being._

_“On top of a pile of furs. Of course, I believed him to have misplaced it and went immediately to return it to him whereupon he placed it upon my head and said it belonged there.”_

 

_Eric’s forehead crumpled in confusion. His father’s method of betrothal allowed quite a wide window of opportunity for misunderstanding. Besides, his father wasn’t a romantic! He was a moody, bossy, miserable old bastard!_

 

_Eric’s mother scrutinised her son._

 

 _“Although…” she said slowly, taking in his creased brow. “Perhaps_ you _might do better with a more…_ direct _approach, my son.”_

 

_“Yes,” agreed Eric, feeling cheered._

_He would sweep beautiful Freja into his arms and declare undying love! And she would agree to be his wife! Unless…_

 

_“Mother…” continued Eric haltingly. “What…what if she does not want me?”_

 

_Eric’s mother looked at her son, the very picture of dejection. It was always women that would bring out his more vulnerable side._

 

_“Eric,” she said, stroking the cheek of her beloved son. “Any woman would be lucky to have you.”_

 

_“Thank you mother,” Eric grinned, freeing himself from her embrace._

 

_He had work to do._

 

_However, over the next few days, Eric bizarrely became extremely busy, and somehow couldn’t find the time to ask Freja anything. Of course he saw her a lot (the village wasn’t the largest of settlements) but quite coincidentally he always found some urgent distraction in the opposite direction whenever she appeared in her haze of goaty perfume._

 

_The jingle of bells announced her arrival at the black smithery that fateful day that Eric made his feelings known, not with words, of course, but by breaking the blacksmith’s nose after he had tried to kiss her._

 

_“ERIC!” roared his father as his mother wound her hands together in anxious pity, wondering how it had all gone so wrong._

 

_But tomorrow was another day, and so now that the ‘direct’ approach had failed, Eric decided upon a bit of romantic cleverness himself._

 

_It was now, faced with a very blank piece of velum, that Eric wished that he had paid more attention to the writing lessons his father had attempted to give him as a child._

 

_Perhaps soon he would have his own children!_

 

_It was this thought that encouraged Eric to put his awkwardly-held stick of charcoal to the surface and begin to write his masterpiece._

 

Freja marry Eric?

 

_Pleased with his handiwork, Eric rolled the sheet lovingly and sealed it with a piece of twine._

 

_He strode out into the late spring day happily, never having realised how beautiful the world really was._

 

_Freja was, as usual, not hard to find with her herd of little angels in tow. Struck by a sudden fit of shyness, Eric decided to tie the note to one of the goats for her to find rather than face her directly._

 

_Having selected his victim, the most docile of the lot which Eric believed Freja had named ‘Mr Goat’, Eric left the note and retreated into the shadows._

 

_Soon she would round the corner and find it!_

 

_Eric waited eagerly, though a frown appeared on his face as he noticed another of the goats take an interest to the addition to his friend. It trotted closer._

 

 _“Don’t…” muttered Eric._ “Don’t…”

 

_Of course it did._

 

_With a surprising burst of speed, the second goat took a leap at the first and snatched Eric’s note in it’s mouth._

 

 _“No!” cried Eric, leaping after the devilish creature as a brilliant wet munching sound could be heard. “You little_ shit! _Come back here!”_

 

_The flock scattered as Eric’s rather huge body lumbered into the middle of it after the bastard creature who was determined to forever ruin his love life._

 

_At last he caught the thing and wrestled it to the ground as it bleated pitifully and its herd watched with polite interest._

 

_“Yeah!” panted Eric, a little surprised by the goat’s strength and tenacity - perhaps he’d never given Freja her due credit for keeping them under control. “That’s what you get for messing with-”_

_“Eric!” cried the sweetest voice in the world which could only belong to Freja. “What are you doing to my poor goat?”_

_“It…stole from me,” grunted Eric, who was still writing with the goat on the floor, both opponents now thoroughly covered in mud._

“Stole _from you?” asked Freja incredulously._

 

_Then she saw the note._

 

_“Mr Goat! You drop that right now!” she commanded. “That belongs to Eric!”_

 

_She managed to prise Eric’s hands from the animal he was trying to throttle and he found in them, as if my magic, his note._

 

_“There you are Eric,” Freja said as the goat retreated with a furious flurry of bleating._

 

_“Yeah!” Eric called after it. “Fuck you too!”_

_He glanced around at what was now quite the crowd which had gathered to watch the King’s son wrestle with the livestock._

 

_“What?” he shouted defiantly._

 

_The crowd grudgingly dispersed._

 

_Freja’s face suggested that an explanation might be in order._

 

_“Er…I…” began Eric, feeling the beginnings of a blush in his cheeks. “I wanted to give you this…”_

 

_He held out the chewed role of velum, wet with goat spit._

 

_“Thanks!” said Freja kindly._

 

_She unrolled it._

 

_“Wow!” she said as she opened it. “It’s so pretty!”_

 

Of course Eric, I will marry you!

 

What an honour to be your queen!

 

Eric, you are the bravest and most handsome man in all the land!

 

_“What does it say?” she asked interestedly._

 

_Eric’s shoulders sagged. He should have really remembered that the odds were minimal that Freja would be able to read._

 

_Eric lost his nerve._

 

_“It says that I would like to be your friend,” he improvised, hoping that no literate person ever found it._

 

_It was Freja’s turn to blush._

 

_“Well that’s very kind of you, Eric,” she said shyly, tucking the note into her belt._

 

_They glanced awkwardly at each other for a moment._

 

_“Should…should I help you round up the goats?” Eric offered, seeing that he’d scattered them._

_Freja laughed._

_“Maybe leave that one to me, Eric,” she said, looking pointedly at Eric’s muddied tunic._

_“Yeah,” Eric laughed nervously. “Maybe you’re right.”_

 

_And it was Eric, conceding that someone knew better than he did, that ultimately sealed their relationship. Despite no promise of marriage, Freja and Eric spent most of their free time together and Eric would often come to find Freja in the barn after she had put her goats to bed (and the other villagers had breathed a secret sigh of relief)._

 

_However, despite his mother’s encouragement and his father’s insistence that he should take a wife, Eric never did ask Freja to marry him, and soon it was too late._

 

_After the wolves attacked the village, Eric became a different man, too fuelled with vengeance to care for a family._

 

_Freja did, however, come down to the water’s edge with the blacksmith and their baby when Eric sailed away to the battle that would claim his human life, a life which would never have led to his standing in the twenty-first century next to a very sour-faced Pam._

 

 

“Oh _Eric,”_ Pam said sympathetically, resting her hand on his shoulder as her maker stared into the night.

 

They stood in silence for a while.

 

She might have seen a tear in his eye.

 

“It was many years ago, now,” Eric said softly. “Nothing can be changed.”

 

“Do you…wish you had lived a human life instead, that you could have been with her?” asked Pam, with more directness than tact.

 

“And my parents and sister had lived?” Eric continued.

 

Pam nodded. Yeah.

 

He considered, smelling the earthy farmyard smell. All the memories it brought back. Happiness, sunshine, Freja…

 

But then he turned to Pam, his progeny. 

 

The years they had spent together, the things they had done.

 

And what about everyone else?

 

He had a family still, he had a father, a sister…in a way he even had a Freja.

 

He had Fangtasia and his Area, his constituents and his pet-hates.

 

He had friends, enemies, people that nagged him, people that wouldn’t dare. And he had life, which is really all he ever wanted.

 

Pam’s face was blank though she was secretly anxious about the answer Eric was going to give. Despite what she might insist, she cared.

 

“No,” Eric said at last. “No I don’t.”

 

Pam’s face cleared.

 

“Good,” she said smoothly. 

 

Her face darkened.

 

“Now can we get the fuck out of here?”


End file.
